December 02, 2009

Posted by Monique Garcia and David Heinzmann at 12:40 p.m.; last updated at 3:20 p.m. with Hynes criticizing Quinn's plans as ill-conceived.

Gov. Pat Quinn today said his foe in the Democratic governor primary of playing politics when it comes to patching the state budget.

Quinn accused Comptroller Dan Hynes of purposely dragging his feet on giving approval to the governor's proposal to borrow $500 million to help the state pay its bills. By law, the comptroller and state treasurer must sign off on the borrowing plan.

Quinn says Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is on board, but that Hynes' office won't even sit down with the governor's budget office to discuss the proposal.

At the Capitol, Hynes dismissed Quinn's charges of dallying for political gain, contending, "I'm managing the crisis that Pat Quinn has been unable to solve."

Hynes maintained the Quinn administration had served up four different proposals in three weeks, including one on Tuesday that came with the suggestion that the details could be worked out later.

"We're not going to sign onto a half a billion borrowing and work out the details later," Hynes said, saying the state faces a $13 billion overall fiscal deficit.

"This is insanity, and somebody needs to stop the madness," Hynes said. "We need a real plan, not patched over, papered over ideas that are basically ill-conceived and not thought out."

Hynes said he wants a plan from Quinn that would show how any proposal to borrow money would fit into the big picture of trying to solve the state's budget woes, an explanation prior administrations would provide when seeking to borrow money.

The Quinn administration has presented borrowing proposals for $900 million, $250 million, $500 million and a fourth to sell the state's payables to a bank as a potential alternative to borrowing, Hynes said.

A Giannoulias spokesman said it's "premature" of Quinn to say the treasurer has signed off on the plan.

"We haven't seen anything from the governor's office yet," said spokesman Scott Burnham. "We haven't been given any documents and if and when that happens, we'll review it and make a decision based on the merits. The treasurer has previously expressed concerns about continuing to borrow, the state can ill afford to go into debt, but we also have a backlog of bills to health care providers that provide critical services."

Quinn says he knows an agreement can be reached quickly, because as treasurer he worked with then-Gov. Jim Edgar to implement a similar short term borrowing plan.

"We negotiated with him very quickly short term loans necessary for the public finance of Illinois. We did it in 1991, we did it in 1993. We did it without any kind of politics or any kind of monkey business. I think the comptroller should get going right now and sit down with my budget people so we can negotiate a short term loan. This is not a difficult thing to do."

Quinn stopped short of saying outright that Hynes was holding up the plan to get a foot up in the Feb. 2 primary, but said the state must act quickly if it wants to get a good interest rate.

"I'm ready to go, Alexi Giannoulias is ready to go, it's time for Dan Hynes to stop dragging his feet and tell his people to sit down with our budget people," Quinn said. "Now to be lollygagging along and meandering along instead of getting the job done is inexcusable. The people of Illinois expect every constitutional officer to do his or her job without politics and this is very important."

"I talked to my budget director on Monday and on Tuesday, and I said, 'What is the problem here with the comptroller's office?' 'They're still studying the matter.' I know personally from my own experience as state treasurer it takes about an hour, maybe a half hour, to get this done. Now let's get it done for the people."

"They say they have to study the matter, OK, we're in an emergency. We've been in a fiscal emergency since Jan. 29 when I took office, I was faced with an $11.5 billion deficit, the worst in Illinois history, no governor has ever had to face this, check it out. And I'm trying to do the best I can for the people of Illinois without playing politics and I don't think it's very good at all for any fiscal officer of our state in any way to do anything other than what's right for the people."

The governor made his remarks after signing legislation that allows the state to take advantage of bonding programs under the federal stimulus plan. The borrowing will be used to pay for school construction and repair, as well as purchasing land to build new schools. Quinn said the state plans to issue up to $488 million in school construction bonds within the first three months of 2010. The bonds are tax exempt and purchasers would get federal income tax credits instead of interest.

The bonds will be used to help pay for construction projects at the University of Illinois, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, which Quinn plans to tour later today.

Quinn's signature also allows the state to issue "Build America Bonds," which can be used to pay for infrastructure programs. The federal government would reimburse Illinois for 35 percent of the total interest on the bonds, and Quinn spokesman Grant Klinzman said the state is working to determine how much it would like to borrow under the plan.

All 50 aldermen on the Chicago City Council had to file paperwork earlier this year detailing their outside income and gifts. The Tribune took that ethics paperwork and posted the information here for you to see. You can search by ward number or alderman's last name.

The Cook County Assessor's office has put together lists of projected median property tax bills for all suburban towns and city neighborhoods. We've posted them for you to get a look at who's paying more and who's paying less.

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